One evening, years ago, I called a friend who worked at another radio station, and we had this exchange:
Me: Hey, how are you?
DJ: Hey, Drew...Sorry about the job.
Me: Pardon me?
DJ: Oh, @#&*. They haven't told you yet, have they? They're letting everyone go. I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to hear this from me.
If you work in radio long enough, this kind of exchange is almost inevitable. A radio station changes its format, and corporate changes all of the station's personnel to give the new format a different identity. You talk to a friend in radio before the program director and/or general manager notify you. The program director, to his credit, broke the news to me the next day; by then, I'd already heard from two people about it. Given that radio stations typically live or perish from ratings book to ratings book, nearly every radio announcer has--or will have--an exchange similar to this one. Death and taxes are two of life's certainties, but radio station format and personnel changes could easily tie for third place on that list.
